OREPA joins 60 groups in letter opposing UPF

The Oak Ridge Environmental Peace Alliance was one of sixty groups that signed a letter seeking to constrain funding for the Uranium Processing Facility, the $8 billion dollar bomb plant slated for the Y12 Nuclear Weapons Complex in Oak Ridge, TN. OREPA, along with other members of the Alliance for Nuclear Accountability, was joined by the Natural Resources Defense Council, Physicians for Social Responsibility, Women’s Allied for New Directions and dozens of other organizations

in signing the letter that was delivered to Senator Carl Levin and the staff of the Senate Armed Services committee which plays a key role in funding decisions.

The letter was a testament to the power of organizing; OREPA provided the first draft of the letter and it was strengthened by colleagues working in ANA’s PeacePod. Eventually, ANA adopted the letter and Katherine Fuchs, ANA Program Officer, began to circulate the letter for sign-ons.

OREPA is pleased and gratified that so many organizations are beginning to focus on the UPF in Oak Ridge, a facility that continues to be plagued by myriad problems and a cost estimate that has rocketed out of sight. Taken together, the UPF problems—crowned in October by the revelation that, after half a billion dollars was spent on the design of the facility and the design team was declared to be nearing 90% completion, the building was not big enough to fit all the equipment it would need to hold—are a clear sign of gross management incompetence. The letter calls on Congressional leader to

The Oak Ridge Environmental Peace Alliance submitted formal comments on the Final Y12 Site-Wide Environmental Impact Statement on Friday, April 1 and supplemented the comments with an additional letter on Monday, April 4, after the publication of an article detailing seismic concerns about buildings currently being used at Y12 for the production of nuclear weapons components. You can read a copy of OREPA's comments here: